Jack Shafer

Jack Shafer (born November 14, 1951) is an American journalist who wrote about media for Politico until June 2024. As a newspaper boy in his youth, he delivered hardcopies of the Kalamazoo Gazette for five years.

Significant series

Posner plagiarism reporting Responding to and confirming a reader tip, Shafer reported that Gerald Posner, The Daily Beast'''s chief investigative reporter, had plagiarized—presented "identical or nearly identical"—sentences (five in number) from a single story published by The Miami Herald.

However, three days later, Shafer published further cases perceived as plagiarism—content from a Miami Herald blog, a Miami Herald editorial, Texas Lawyer and a health care journalism blog —from Posner's work, leading to Posner's departure from The Daily Beast. Posner offered an explanation of ways in which the plagiarism might have occurred, and explanation which has received critical review. He has frequently written about media coverage of the war on drugs.

On journalistic awards Shafer "famously had zero use for [journalistic] awards", which "he groused, were a parade of self-congratulatory 'industry peacockery'", and so did not seek them out (the irony of which has been noted, given articles of his, e.g., "So You Won a Pulitzer: Who Cares?").

On his libertarianism Shafer wrote early in his career—through the early 1980s—for Inquiry, a libertarian magazine, and has written about "his own libertarian politics"; he has asserted in interview, however, that "they are driven in their criticism by a deep suspicion of authority more than any particular ideology". Later he wrote, "Traditionally, the state censors and marginalizes voices while private businesses tend to remain tolerant."

On April 20, 2020, Shafer expressed opposition to the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, saying, "You wouldn't put a dead man on a ventilator, would you?".

Rebuttals Judith Miller, writing in her 2015 autobiography, harshly addresses Shafer's criticism of what he termed was her "wretched" reporting on Iraq in The New York Times—in at least six of his pieces in Slate—referring to his writing as "assaults" or "personal attacks", to his own reporting as "erroneou", and arguing that he "never once sought a response from me", suggesting that his motivation was to achieve "buzz and internet clicks".

Personal life Shafer is married to Nicole Arthur, who has worked as a features editor in the Style section of The Washington Post; they have two daughters. Mark Lisheron's article in the AJR'' describes him as "follow[ing] baseball, but... repelled by the $9 cup of beer at the park", and as one who has "force himself outdoors... add[ing] birding to hiking, which has taken him from Newfoundland to the Galapagos Islands".